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Researchers have created a simple mathematical model
that reveals the stunning colours of the hot springs at Yellowstone National
Park by visually recreating what they looked like years ago before decades of
tourists ruined them with rubbish.
RT.com reports scientists have long understood the basic physical
phenomena that create the colours of the hot springs. They exists because of an
interplay between underwater vents and lawns of bacteria, and now the research
team have created a mathematical model that empirically shows how the chemical
and physical variables in the pools relate to the optical colors.
The research was carried out by scientists from
Montana State University and the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences in
Germany and was published in the journal Applied Optics.
They used a simple one-dimensional model for light
propagation, which was able to account for each pool’s spectral reflection and
therefore reproduce the incredible colours of the Hot Spring pools.
The scientists used digital SLR cameras, long wave
infrared thermal imaging cameras for non-contact measurements of water temperatures
and handheld spectrometers.
“What we were also to show is that you really don’t
have to get terribly complex – you can explain some very beautiful things with
relatively simple models,”
said Joseph Shaw, director of Montana University’s Optical Technology Center.
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In one of the pools called the Morning Glory Pool they
were able to recreate what it looked like between the 1880’s and the 1940’s
when its temperatures was much higher, which made its waters appear a uniform
deep blue. But an amalgamation of rubbish, coins and rocks which have piled up
in the pond over the decades and have caused its temperature to lower and
therefore its color to change to an orange, yellow, green mix.
“We
didn’t start this project as experts on thermal pools. We started this project
as experts on optical phenomena and imaging, and so we had a lot to learn,” said Shaw.
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